Content Marketing is more than just publishing content...
When Doug Kessler (Velocity Partners) published his Slideshare ‘Crap: the single biggest threat to b2b content marketing’ it rightly got a lot of attention (one million views and counting).
[slideshare id=15931787&doc=velocitycrap-130110064100-phpapp01]
I think that the popularity of this Slideshare was not only because of the great title, but because it highlighted the challenge of getting cut-through as more B2B brands are spending more time on content marketing. Now B2B buyers cannot move for the flood of Ebooks, blog posts, and infographics (which are getting longer by the day!). According to the CMI:
74% of marketers say they are producing more content than they did a year ago, but 70% of content produced gets wasted each day!
From my experience of working with brands and training marketers on content marketing, there seems to be a common experience with initial adoption of Content Marketing. You know you need to be doing something, so you start…
Increasing your reach by getting off your B2B blog and writing for others
The benefits of business blogging and personal blogging are well-known in terms of improving search visibility, delivering traffic and raising your profile but often it is hard to get audiences to come back to a blog on a business web site and engage.
A standard approach most business bloggers adopt is to seed blog content around the web - tapping into social media platforms, websites, groups, hubs and communities - with the goal of getting people to click the link and return to the website to take action.
Blogging, in this sense is, a very worthwhile activity. But it also a little bit spammy and has to be managed carefully to avoid coming across as being self-absorbed.
As most companies are blogging in order to improve visibility, stimulate greater website traffic and foster deeper engagement - a more inclusive blogging distribution strategy is…
New research shows B2B services marketing budget priorities
ITMSA's recent research reviewed B2B Marketing investment priorities from larger companies including Microsoft, SalesForce and BT.
The report shares findings on budget allocations, detailed allocation of marketing spend, staffing, priorities and challenges for this year.
It highlights shifts in focus - ' according to the research, in the past the focus was on 'reputation', today it's 'Revenue' and the future is 'relationships'.
The companies surveyed are focusing on revenue generation (ROI), Thought Leadership, Brand Differentiation and Reputations, as they continue to plan for online spend.
Where are marketing spending plans for this year?
The biggest spend is forecasted to be on marketing programs, campaigns and content development. Content Development accounts for 15% of spend.
The report shows some flexibility in budget investment with 8 in 10 of the companies able to…
Which channels affect purchase decisions for B2B buyers?
BuyerSphere is an excellent report for B2B marketers from Base One that is now in its 5th Edition and has just been released. If you don't know it, it reviews many aspects of B2B Digital Marketing with the focus on the decision-making process for B2B products and services by reviewing the behaviour and attitudes of over 200 B2B buyers for purchases over £20,000. Refreshingly the report focuses on 'what buyers do' and 'not what marketers think' with some enlightening findings.
This article shares the findings on how the buyers find information to support their decision-making process and how influential the source is in terms of realising that sale.
Where do businesses find their information on their supplier?
Those holding the purse strings or 'influencers' in the buying decision, use at least 2 different information sources when selecting their supplier. With the main sources being gathered from…
Aligning training to marketing skills for 2015
B2B Marketing and Circle Research reported in their '2014 Professional Development Report' on how companies are carrying out their professional training and development, Interested in benchmarking your training or aligning your training to your gaps in terms of marketing skills? Their Infographic gives you a taster of the report's findings which is a paid report, and useful for supporting recruitment opportunities or building a business case for your training budget:
The top marketing skills are employees with an understanding of 'Segmentation, Profiling and Customer Insight'.
Top 2 skills gap are in 'Legal requirements' and 'Measurement and Reporting'.
62% of employers deliver ad-hoc training and the preferred delivery is face-to-face.
You can download their full infographic for more highlights from their Professional Development Report. Our…
Comparing the efficiency of your B2B Marketing Funnel
It's natural that marketers want to benchmark, to compare the efficiency of their conversion funnels - but what datasets should they compare with? Within Ecommerce there are relatively good sources for Retail ecommerce conversion rates provided by Ecommerce vendors, but within business-to-business, no similar benchmarks are widely available - let us know if you know any good sources! I think this lack of B2B benchmarks is partly because it is harder to define the different steps of the funnel within B2B marketing in a standard way.
If you're looking for a comparison of B2B conversion rates - here is a simple comparison from Marketing Sherpa, but it's a couple of years old now and doesn't standardise the funnel as conversion from lead to marketing qualified lead to sale, or look at costs such as cost per lead and cost per acquisition. The figures seem high…
Where to focus to get ahead and stay ahead of the competition
It isn’t always about embracing the newest, shiniest techniques. Instead, the fundamentals of consistency, reliability and credibility are often more important to make an impact with customers.
Customers may often cite innovation as one of the must haves, but it’s rarely at the top of the list. In B2B, they want continuity and risk mitigation.
That's why web searches, supplier websites, and email remain the primary information sources for the modern business buyer. These are the tools that allow customers to seek out products and services, to learn about the companies that provide them and to ensure they are regularly updated on them.
In our recent "Six ways to turbocharge your B2B marketing" webinar - now available on demand - we discussed six ways to ensure you are at the forefront of your B2B customer's mind. For those of you too busy…
Examples showing why B2B website visitors deserve a great experience too
Whichever business sector you are in, it is still crucial to consider your digital marketing as a holistic process created around your website. In a 2013 blog post here on Smart Insights I detailed a number of areas that all effective B2B websites should have. Many remain relevant even though the technology and customer expectation has moved on.
The objective of this blog post is to build on this theme of centrality and align it with the delivery of powerful and engaging user experience that draws visitors in and keeps them coming back again and again.
Only by creating a website rich in customer focused content and that is built to respond to the device it is being viewed on, has the chance of catching and maintaining attention. I'll also be covering this topic as part of 6 key tactics to Turbocharge your digital…
31 Predictions on the Future of B2B Marketing
Each year, through the year, I’m reviewing the latest trends and predictions for digital marketing to update Smart Insights members and to include in new editions of my books I’m working on. Looking to the year ahead, I have just updated my ideas on trends in marketing for 2015 with a focus on the latest software tools to help digital marketers - please take a look and vote on the most important trend for your business!
My reviews tend to span across all of digital marketing, so I was interested to see this compilation of predictions compiled by Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing focusing on the future of B2B Digital Marketing.
It’s curated by Top Rank Digital in association with Marketing Profs for their upcoming B2B Forum, so I was interested to take a…
With a choice of LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google +, YouTube, where should you spend your precious time?
You could answer that your business should have a presence on each of these platforms but what evidence do you have to suggest that this approach is your best bet?
Let's take this down a level, if you are only going to choose LinkedIn as your preferred social media site for B2B, where should you spend your time - posting updates to your connections' newsfeeds, entering into discussions in LinkedIn groups, sending bulk messages to tagged connections? Which of these actions is best? Well, as far as you and your business is concerned, I can't answer that question - the only person who can is you.
[caption id="attachment_40329" align="alignleft" width="208"] Image courtesy of remibadozi.com[/caption]
It's about testing
Too many businesses and individuals sign up to LinkedIn,…
